The Petaling Jaya Utara MP was referring to MCA vice-president Chew Mei Fun’s statement on Thursday that based on the 2016 Auditor-General’s (AG) report, a substantial portion of the state’s income came from the sale of land and land transfer fees.
“BN’s rule over Penang saw the sale of 3,661 acres of state land in the 15 years before 2008. Under Pakatan leadership, only 106.1 acres of state land was sold over the past 10 years.
“If Chew didn’t fail her mathematics, she should have figured that Pakatan has barely sold 3% of what BN sold.
“Despite the current Pakatan government’s ‘restrained’ sale of land, we have managed to receive income which far exceeds that received under the previous BN government’s policy of ‘unrestrained land sale’,” Pua said, adding that all the statistics on the sale of state land by the two administrations clearly show the comparison he has given.
According to Pua, the DAP-PKR led Penang government has earned RM1.11 billion from the sale of its 106.1 acres.
“This compares with the BN state government only being able to raise RM1.06 billion from 3,661 acres of land.
“In other words, the Penang state government today collected more money despite selling only a tiny fraction of the land sold by BN. This was achieved simply because the Pakatan government carried out open tenders for its sale.”
Pua also called out Chew on her use of the 2016 Auditor-General’s Report, saying the same report for the years 2002 to 2007 showed the sale and transfer of state land was a key contributor to the state.
“By the very fact that we have successfully sold these land for very substantially higher prices than the BN government, of course it would naturally result in a higher contribution from land revenue to the state coffers, as reported by the AG.
“Hence, the only difference was Pakatan received much more despite selling much less,” he said.
Pua, who is DAP national publicity secretary, also criticised Chew for her audacity in accusing the current state government of “unrestrained sale of state land” despite the facts showing otherwise.
He then reminded Chew of the issue reported in September this year of MCA having allegedly bought land in his constituency in Petaling Jaya, Selangor at below market price in 2007.
“As exposed earlier, even when Chew was MP for my current constituency, her party MCA acquired an acre of prime land from the then BN state government for a measly RM1 per square feet (psf) in 2007. Today, the land is worth as much as RM400psf.
“Despite her refusal to take responsibility for the transaction, she admitted to being fully aware of it,” Pua said.
He also alleged that this was just one of the hundreds and perhaps thousands of land deals which MCA had benefited from BN state governments across the country.”
“So the question for Chew is, what moral standing does she have to chide the Penang state government over land sale conducted via open tenders, when her own party has effectively abused its position in power to profit themselves and betray the trust the voters had placed in them?”